After Corrections Commissioner’s Indictment, Mississippi Private Prisons Under New Scrutiny

By Carla Murphy Nov 17, 2014

Mississippi’s longest serving corrections commissioner, Chris Epps, has been indicted on 49 counts of bribery, money laundering and more over at least a seven-year period. The indictment, details of which were publicly disclosed in early November, threatens to cast wider scrutiny on the state’s prison system and private prisons in particular. In 2012 according to The New York Times, a federal judge called the conditions at one privately run facility "a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions." 

Mississippi has the second highest incarceration rate in the country.

hThe Epps story is developing. Read the latest in The New York Times.